Civil Servant

Years ago (16 or 17) I had a case against Charles, a Miami City attorney. I always liked him a lot, and wished I had gotten to know him better.

Charles is about 65 now, and a black man who came here from a Northern city. He's a black man from the 60s era --he protested Vietnam with his fellow college students, and has very liberal politics. Despite that background, he became a lawyer for the CITY!, and often represented their police department in civil rights cases. Talk about representing THE MAN!!!!!

The case I had involved a young black man who was in a marching band in Liberty City, and was practicing his moves with an umbrella. Unfortunately, the Miami police were taking a New Jersey cop on a training tour, and thought the young man was holding a rifle. They encountered the young man, and the Miami police kept their cool, but the New Jersey cop (a big Polish guy) fired off a shot, hitting my client in the thigh.

He lived, but was left with a permanent limp. My partner and I (at the time we worked for another firm) sued the New Jersey city that employed officer trigger finger, and also sued Miami. Charles was Miami's lawyer.

The New Jersey city hired a large firm (I'll call them Greenberg Traurig, since that's their name) who defended this injury case like it was one of their typical commercial disputes --they bombarded us with tons of paper. The judge we drew, not one of the brightest bulbs in the pinball machine, used to lift the enormous motions and memoranda in the air and say to the Greenberg lawyer "You expect me to READ all of this?" We'd win every motion on that basis.

Ultimately, for all of their horses and all of their associates, the Greenberg lawyers settled with us, for hundreds of thousands of dollars. We laughed all the way to the bank, because, under Florida law, the New Jersey city was entitled to the same damage limitation as the City of Miami had: they shouldn't have paid any more than $100,000.00. We happily took the money and turned to the City.

Charles, the City lawyer, played it cool. We all knew that the City ought to pay us THEIR $100K (he LOVED that the big civil firm messed up and paid us 3 times what they owed), but stayed firm. No offer.

Finally, we got to trial, and as soon as my partner started questioning the jury panel, Charles asked the judge for a "side bar," and announced the City wanted to settle. We agreed. His marching orders had been to see whether we were serious about going to trial, and, if we were, to pay the damage cap.

While Charles was chatting with my partner, I walked over to his desk, and lifted his trial briefcase. It was empty! I pointed this out to him, as I marvelled at this poker bluff. "Not exactly, Davey my boy," he said, "I DO have my lunch with me!"

Anyway, I'd see Charles over the years, and once bought him lunch at Tobacco Road. He was dining with a FINE looking lady...

He got into trouble recently, as he was involved in a class action brought by a Jewban lawyer, in which the only ones who made money in a big settlement were the Jewban and his firm.

I was happy to see Charles exonerated. I read he retired recently.

And then yesterday, I was crawling along in traffic on Bayshore Drive, and I was stopped in front of Peacock Park, where Acee's Icees is parked. I saw Charles park his Cadillac and get out, a book and New York Times under his arm. He looked fit and trim. His beard was white. He looked RETIRED and RELAXED.

I could just tell his day would involve reading by the Bay, and maybe meeting friends for lunch. I'm guessing he had a huge party the night President OBama won. Good for him!

So many lawyers fade into bitterness as they age. It was great to see Charles travel on a more pleasant road...